If Ever I Fall

  PRAISE FOR THE LETTER CLUB

  Nothing Else But You

  “This was one of my favorites from an author period. It had everything I love in a novel. The characters and plot had me from beginning to end. Highly recommend.” ~JuliaBookLandReviews

  “I totally fell in love with this book, Gio is a dream and so is his girl. We get to know them through their letters and want them to get on in real life despite all the possible problems and obstacles. My new favourite author.” ~JennyIndigo

  “Wow! Loved it. I found the letters so great for a written style. The couple finding out about each other and falling in love without ever meeting. Awesome characters with so much emotion. A must read!” ~Laura Johnston

  “This story was so touching. The plot is emotionally brilliant and the characters fit in perfectly. I love the emotional vulnerability and chemistry the protagonists have.” ~PinkieIsShy

  “Old fashioned letter writing has never been done better.” ~Loni

  SHEER FORCE OF WILL

  A deranged ex tries to kill her and whoosh, her insanely over protective father takes Sofia Di Caro to Vittoria, Sicily to live with relatives. Forced exile is making her nuts until she spends one glorious night getting to know Matteo Parisi. Matteo is everything he seems to be, and not. Crazy, scary danger surrounds the Parisi family, and Sofia must go back to the States to be safe. Certain she's found the love of her life, she refuses to sever their connection and uses the anonymity of The Letter Club to keep in touch with Matteo. What starts as the perfect solution leads to a series of events that reveals truths about her family and the core of who the man Matteo really is, which makes her want him even more.

  IF EVER I FALL

  The Letter Club – Book 2

  Elle Wright

  www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.

  IF EVER I FALL

  Copyright © 2020 Elle Wright

  All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.

  ISBN 978-1-951055-47-9

  E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

  www.gopublished.com

  When you’re sure, don’t ever give up

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all the young women who know their minds, desires, wishes and dreams. Forge ahead, don’t give in, give up, or let anyone tell you how to live your life. If you know it’s right, you’ll get there. The journey is part of the greatest ride life can offer. Hold on with both hands and go for it.

  Thanks to my beta reader, aka Miss Honesty. ’Preciate you more than you know. To Boroughs Publishing Group, thank you for being there.

  IF EVER I FALL

  Di Caro Residence

  Dutchford, Connecticut

  Sofia

  Hi number 980462. I’m sitting at my drafting table in my studio surrounded by sketchpads, pencils, pens, tools, my press, and wood blocks, which is why this is written on sketch paper. I find comfort here. It’s one of the few places I can be where I get lost in my work and shut out the world. When I’m creating, everything else falls away and time becomes irrelevant. Sometimes the only reason I go to bed is because my nonna or my mom come get me. Right now I’m working on a piece that’s larger than what I typically do. It’s a landscape, also different for me, but it’s a place etched into my brain, and you know why it will always be.

  My life has become even smaller than it had been when I was in Sicily. Now I have no phone, and I’m not allowed to drive my car. I’m driven everywhere in a blacked-out SUV. When it pulls up to the school, I slink out and run inside. I’m embarrassed and humiliated. I can’t live like this for much longer. The good news, I won’t have to. Seven months and sixteen days until I graduate, and the same week I get out of high school, I turn eighteen. I won’t have to live like a cloistered nun anymore.

  Last night I went to four Halloween parties with Amy, Gio, and Nat. I couldn’t believe my parents let me go. Gio said he didn’t have to do any convincing, but I don’t believe him. It seemed too normal, which means we were probably followed all night, and I didn’t pick up the tail.

  Anyway, the first three parties were at houses off campus that had like six or eight guys living in each house. Even though the houses were packed with wall-to-wall people, you could tell the places were a mess all the time. We didn’t stay long at any of the houses. I think we stopped by so Gio could make an appearance. He didn’t say, but I’m guessing some of his teammates lived in each place.

  The best party was the one at a hotel downtown. The DJ was great, the costumes were outrageous, and the bathrooms were clean. You’d be surprised how many girls rate places on how clean the bathrooms are. For real, I mark down restaurants if their bathrooms are only okay. If they’re skank, I won’t eat there again. I figure they keep the food and the kitchen as clean as they keep the bathroom.

  I went as Carrie – the Sissy Spacek version. All the party stores sell fake blood that’s made mostly with food dye and corn syrup. Amy bought a bottle for me and I poured it over my head and let it drip down a dress I hate. It looked creepy, and I got a lot of compliments, but the truth is I didn’t feel like going to the parties. Five months ago you couldn’t have kept me from going out, now I can barely muster the energy. I went because I saw it as an escape and a chance to be semi-normal for a few hours.

  Amy and I slept in Gio’s quad and he and Nat took us to lunch at this burger place where you create your own burgers or mac and cheese. Total pig-out village, but the food was great, and again, I felt normal for a few hours.

  I know another big fight is coming because I want to visit Theresa. She was the shrink who stepped in front of a bullet for me. She’s home from rehab now, and she’s still recovering. I heard my father tell my mother that Theresa has physical and occupational therapists come to her house every day for a couple of hours each. I don’t know how much time she spent in the hospital, or that in-treatment rehab center, but it had to be weeks in the hospital and months in rehab. Anyway, I don’t care what my parents say. I’m going to visit her if I have to shout the house down.

  They can’t understand that the weight of gratitude and guilt crushes me. I’ll never be able to repay what Theresa did. And though he’d never tell me if I asked, and I don’t bother to ask since he never tells me, I know my father paid for and pays for her care. Which means she’s getting the best. But even if everything returns to normal physically, how do you recover from a trauma like that? No doubt, she’d going to need to go to a shrink for a long time.

  Next week I start with my new therapist, and I’m not looking forward to it. Between what happened with Theresa, and being yanked away from Chiara, who I really liked, I don’t want to start that process again with anyone else. Not that I don’t need it. I do. I know I’m fucked up. Who wouldn’t be after the past few months, but the whole opening up to a stranger you have to trust to make the therapy meaningful doesn’t appeal any
more. I know I have to try, but right now I can’t work up the energy to care.

  Before my mom or nonna comes knocking, I’m going to say good night and ask a question. When I said I’d give anything to have the freedom you enjoy, why did you shut down?

  Buona notte.

  Miffy

  Six Day Earlier

  Di Caro Residence

  Dutchford

  Sofia

  Sofia knew she should be happy for her brother Gio and his new fiancée, Natalia, or as the family had taken to calling her, Nat. Well, Nonna and Dad called her Natalia, but that was because both of them had Dark Ages mentality, which was the root cause of Sofia’s misery. She knew she was being mean when she cringed inside every time someone at this monster-sized party made a toast to the happy couple, but she couldn’t help it. She liked Nat, she really did. Aside from being a blonde bombshell – well, half blonde, the red was growing out – Nat was smart as fuck and attended Brown University with Gio, who mooned after her. But right now was not the time to rub love in Sofia’s face. She’d been back home for three weeks after being ripped away from the one person who saw her for who she really was, and had fallen for her.

  Oh shit. Here comes Nonna. Gio called their grandmother the little general, and he wasn’t kidding. Barely five feet tall and built like a mini linebacker, Nonna did not play. She could be funny and loving, but no one got cut any slack.

  “Cara.” This was going to be bad. When Nonna spoke in Italian, even though her English was perfect, it meant she was dead serious as opposed to her usual absolutely serious. In Italian: “Stop moping around. You’re wearing a pretty dress. Your hair is shiny, and you’re a beautiful girl. Start acting like it.”

  Sofia stopped herself from rolling her eyes, smiled at her grandmother then said, “Okay, Nonna,” when she wanted to say, “How I look is irrelevant. I feel like shit, and you know why.” But Sofia would never say that or anything approximating that to anyone except Gio. And, maybe, Nat. Definitely not Aurora, the “little” sister who was more gansta than a high school sophomore at Our Lady Catholic High School For Girls. Ro never cut anyone slack either.

  Thank God the seniors’ classes were held on the third floor of the school, and they ate lunch later than the underclass girls. Sofia saw Ro when they travelled to and from school, and that was it. Bad enough they had to sit in the backseat of a blacked-out SUV driven by one of their father’s thugs. That humiliation took a half hour to wear off each morning. Right about when homeroom ended. To have Ro know what Sofia was thinking and feeling would be an invitation to an emotional disaster from which she would never recover. Ro would never be Sofia’s confidante.

  The middle child, Sofia had always been the good girl. Polite. Quiet. An “A” student. Delicate. She hated that word. It intimated she didn’t have the guts to stand up to life. That she had to be protected and cossetted as if she were a porcelain vase wobbling precariously on a broken stand. She’d had no control over the genetics that made her look as she did. She favored her mother’s side of the family where the women were short in stature, small-boned, and fair skinned. No lie, Sofia was more than a foot shorter than her brother, who towered over her at six-four. If it weren’t for her features, which were all Mom’s except for the blue eyes, and even they weren’t as bright as her father’s and Gio’s, Sofia didn’t look like she belonged in the family photos.

  No poor me shit here. Facts layered with living with a grandmother and father who wouldn’t mind putting a chastity belt on her until she was twenty-five and married to a guy they chose.

  Nat walked over and leaned against the wall next to Sofia and motioned to the packed house. “I’m told this isn’t the full complement. That a bunch of folks couldn’t make it on such short notice.”

  Sofia had to smile. Nat was trying to cheer her up. See. Good person. “Most of us live within a hundred-mile radius of here, but some are in Sicily, England, Canada, and California. They need more than three weeks to get their shit together to show up.”

  “Still, there has to be nearly three hundred people here. It’s nice of them to come.”

  Now Sofia laughed. “Free food and booze, fancy digs, an excuse to dress up and show off, and a chance to see who the heir to the throne is marrying.” Nat dipped her head and chuckled. “You think my father doesn’t notice who doesn’t make it?” Nat raised her brows. She had such an expressive face. “No one wants to be on his shit list.”

  “Ah.”

  “Exactly. Ah.”

  “Listen, Gio and I were wondering if you wanted to hang with us on Halloween. There are a few parties we’re going to, and everyone is dressing up. You can bunk in Gio’s room. Howie volunteered to crash on the couch, which is par for the course, so don’t feel like you’re putting him out of his space.”

  “If, and this is a giant if, I’m allowed to go –”

  “Gio already talked to your parents. They’re fine with it.”

  “What did he have to promise? Tommie the goon has to be there? I have to be handcuffed to my brother all night?”

  Nat cracked up. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, really. This is me adjusting to the different levels of drama.”

  “Advice. Nothing happens in this family that doesn’t have drama attached to it, including changing the brand of toilet paper we use.” Sofia huffed. “You should have been here when Ro announced the toilet paper fell apart too easily. After ten minutes of her arguing with Nonna, Gio was so fed up he went to the Stop and Shop, bought six different brands of toilet paper, put them on the kitchen counter, told us to ‘get a grip,’ then disappeared. No lie, we spent an entire night fighting about the pros and cons of various toilet paper brands before picking one.”

  “Was your father involved in the toilet paper decision?”

  “You’re joking, right?” Nat shook her head. “He comes into the kitchen two minutes before dinner is on the table. He sits down, eats, gets up and poof. He’s gone. Anything and everything that happens in or about the house is decided by Mom and Nonna.”

  “No conversation?”

  Sofia almost smiled. Nat hadn’t fully realized yet that while Gio looked exactly like their father, no one on earth could be more different. “Sometimes he asks about school. Most of the time, if he talks, it’s to order us to do something Mom or Nonna wants us to do. Otherwise, he eats, kisses Mom on the cheek, and heads to who knows where.”

  Gio came over, leaned against the wall, and put his arm over Nat’s shoulder. He was so gone for her. She was it for him, and Sofia had never seen her brother so happy.

  “Yo, Soph, you coming with us on Halloween?”

  Ah, an orchestrated approach. First send Nat to butter up Sofia, then Gio comes in for the close. “First you have to tell me how you convinced them to say yes. Especially since I’m missing school the next day.”

  “No convincing.”

  “Bullshit. Who’s coming with me?”

  “Amy, if you want.”

  In that moment, Sofia saw an opportunity she never thought would be possible. “Cool. I’ll ask her.”

  The next morning, over breakfast, Sofia asked Gio and Nat to tell the story of how they met. She’d heard pieces of it about fifty times the night before, but she wanted to make sure she got the whole thing straight from the horses’ mouths.

  Lunchroom

  Our Lady

  Dutchford

  Sofia

  “I’m just sayin’.” Amy stared at Sofia as if she wasn’t processing. “If your father finds out, next time he’s going to send you to an outpost in the Arctic. You sure you want to do this, Soph?”

  “I have to for my sanity.”

  Amy took a deep breath and said, “Okay. Let’s go over this slowly. I’m not as smart as you.”

  Sofia grinned. “You’re slick and clever. I’m not worried about you keeping up.” Amy made the get-on-with-it motion so Sofia broke it down. “Okay, here’s how it works. You join The Letter Club and they assign a number to you. I
’ll write to Matteo using that number, give you the letters to mail, and he’ll write return letters to you that you’ll give to me.”

  “This is so fucking complicated. Why don’t you get a burner phone and call him when you’re in school?”

  Sofia leaned on her elbow and laid her hand over her forehead. “When would you like me to buy the burner? When I’m shopping with my mom, or Nonna? If I’m shopping with you, Tommie’s following us, so that’s not happening. Even if I could get a burner, where should I keep it? The house is out, and I’m not allowed to drive anymore so I can’t hide it in the car.”

  “I’ll buy the burner for you.”

  “You’d have to keep it with you all week. Where do you propose to put it, and don’t be rude.” Amy rolled her eyes. “Our backpacks are searched coming in and at random during the day. The school’s security guards go into our lockers whenever they want. You know the rules. No phones at school. You get busted you’ll be suspended for three days. You want to explain that to your mother knowing how understanding and supportive Monica is?” Sofia glared at Amy.

  “Oh, all right. I’m going to have to scope the mail before my ’rents, but that’s doable.” Amy twirled her long auburn hair around her finger. “Hey, how are you going to let him know what he has to do on his end?”

  “Halloweenie.”

  “Huh?”

  “When we’re in Providence with Gio and Nat –”

  “You should call them one name. NatGio, like National Geographic.”

  “Ooo.” Sofia smacked Amy’s arm. “That’s a good one. Ro’s gonna be pissed she didn’t think of it.”

  Amy licked her forefinger and made a slash in the air. “Soph, one. Brat, zippo.”

  Sofia laughed. She absolutely loved Amy. “Yeah, for today anyway. But, for real, when we’re in Providence, I’ll call Matteo on your phone and tell him the whole plan. Don’t worry, I’ll give you the money to cover the call.”